revolving spit. It was cheerful, smiling, hospitable; a regular type
of the good old-fashioned French hostelry.

A pretty, white-necked waitress came up and asked him with a great
display of flashing teeth:

"Will monsieur have breakfast?"

"Of course I will! Give me some eggs, a cutlet, and cheese. And a
bottle of white wine!"

She turned to go; he called her back. "Tell me, is it not in one of
those houses that the Emperor has his quarters?"

"There, monsieur, in that one right before you. Only you can't see it,
for it is concealed by the high wall with the overhanging trees."

He loosed his belt so as to be more at ease in his capote, and
entering the arbor, chose his table, on which the sunlight, finding
its way here and there through the green canopy above, danced in
little golden spangles. And constantly his thoughts kept returning to
that high wall behind which was the Emperor. A most mysterious house
it was, indeed, shrinking from the public gaze, even its slated roof
invisible. Its entrance was on the other side, upon the village
street, a narrow winding street between dead-walls, without a shop,
without even a window to enliven it. The small garden in the rear,
among the sparse dwellings that environed it, was like an island of
dense verdure. And across the road he noticed a spacious courtyard,
surrounded by sheds and stables, crowded with a countless train of
carriages and baggage-wagons, among which men and horses, coming and